


Rabbit Hole

by viceroyvonmutini



Series: LadiesofPOI-Kara Stanton (B) [8]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 14:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4140675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceroyvonmutini/pseuds/viceroyvonmutini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was something she knew she needed but wasn’t willing to find.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rabbit Hole

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: Cage (artist's own choice)
> 
> There was so much to say with this but not enough words. I feel this has only scratched the surface of what I wanted to achieve or attempt to illustrate but I can't seem to make it any more eloquent. So this will have to do.

They were in Thailand. A number had come up. John followed diligently behind her as they stalked through the dark underbelly of Bangkok. Kara’s gun was drawn as they held alert through the grimy streets, pushing their way through fabric dividers and into the open expanse of a warehouse.

John stilled behind her not moving from the doorway as he slowly lowered his weapon. Kara took a few steps forward, lowering her own gun as her heeled boots sung in the quiet warehouse over the low groans of the girls on the factory floor, the shuffling of sticky skin on stained fabric that served as a bed overwhelming to Kara.

She stepped slowly through the warehouse, gazing at the strewn girls. She stopped and John watched as she bent down and picked up an empty syringe. John holstered his weapon.

Kara turned the syringe around in her hand, watching as the girls around her followed the movement hungrily. She tossed it aside, the clatter echoing above the moans and pleas in a language she didn’t understand as she headed back towards John and they made their silent exit.

John heard pleas for release.

Kara heard something else.

There was something to be said for control. But then, there was also a lot to be said for a lack of it.

There comes a point so far down the proverbial rabbit hole when climbing out becomes cumbersome. When the only way forward is down. Alice knew this and in time, so did Kara.

Wanting to get out is different from leaving.

It was an exercise of control. John saw restraint as a simple exercise of control and the thought almost offended Kara because in front of those girls was an insurmountable mountain. Kara would never profess to understand and sympathy really wasn’t her thing but she could see enough.

There comes a point so far down that you desperately want to clamber out but the thing that brought you there screams stay and all your priorities get just a little fucked up because you should be moving and instead you’re crawling further and deeper and the light at the end of the tunnel no longer seems real.

Kara thought about change sometimes. Alone at the end of a mission: John stalking his long lost love and she sat in her room or waiting for a drink at a bar wondering what she’d be if she changed. She didn’t think she wanted to change but if she did what would she be?

She could blame the world for her lack of control: handing her a life with no rules and regulations only that the job was to be completed, but it was her own fundamental hatred of restraint that led her to a purpose without morals. What was the point of a cage when outside is so much more enjoyable?

Why would she want to stop?

But if she did. If the fates handed her something new, a clean slate, would she take it?

She thought of those girls then: drug ridden and lost. Every second wishing they could leave but knowing that their life no longer belonged to them. It belonged to the rush, the calm before the storm, the blur around the edges of their lives that made the unbearable sing sweet and taste like desire.

You want to see it brutal but instead you think of its caress.

Kara could walk away.

A man tied to a chair and a tray of instruments. John watching from the shadows and she can feel his sanctimony: the upstanding gentleman dressed as a killer. She could walk away. She could kill this captive with a single bullet and they could leave and every time she thinks John hopes that this will be the day she walks away.

She never does.

There was always justification: information to gather. They’re the good guys. And she is good at what she does. He sings like a symphony to her tune and why would she ever give this up?

Cages are ugly in her mind but she had been running from them so long she can no longer remember.

Kara thinks about restraint: she thinks about John and his efficiency wracked with repression and she thinks that is no way to live.

She indulges. Just a bit more each time and when she gets away with it she pushes just a little bit more.

She is not a precision instrument though she is sure restraint would carve her into metal.

She is the spray of sulfur.

She is the frag grenade that hits where it hurts but you’re never quite sure where. That kills but leaves you still breathing.

She is the girl on the mattress writhing for the next hit, willing desperately to rise from the dead crust of her vomit but reaching for the next syringe praying it might be clean.

**Author's Note:**

> This was the last of the LadiesofPOI prompts I believe. 
> 
> This thing has taken years off me and Kara continues to elude me.


End file.
